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Joseph Haydn

composer

About this Artist

Born: 1732, Rohrau, Austria
Died: 1809, Vienna, Austria

Few composers come close to Haydn in terms of both the quantity and the quality of their production, and of its historical importance. In a lifetime that ran from the high Baroque of Bach and Handel, across the whole Classical era and the short life of Mozart, up to the dawn of Romanticism and Beethoven’s first six symphonies, Haydn not only lived through a period of enormous cultural change, but he also helped impel it. Writing prolifically in all genres, he virtually created the string quartet and did much to establish the symphony.